In an interview with Esports Pro, Rainbow Six Siege game director Alexandre Remy spoke about the game’s recent shift towards a Glaz meta, responding to the recent community outcry over the Russian sniper by saying that a perfect balance is “an important goal to aim at, but also an unreachable one.”

Glaz is one of several operators in Rainbow Six Siege, a Russian sniper who was buffed in the last season’s mid-season reinforcements patch to have a thermal scope that can see through gas, smoke and other obstructions. As Glaz himself carries smoke grenades, he’s become something of a monster, one of the best operators for going into hardened rooms to soften people up.

This has confused several members of the community, who feel that as a sniper, Glaz should be sniping. This confusion turned to frustration upon the announcement of Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation Health, a three-month break from new content or rebalancing while the team focus on improving the health of the game, tackling issues with many technical aspects of the game like hit registration and tick rate. No balance changes mean no change to Glaz, an operator the community now perceive as the game’s apex predator.

“Over the last year we’ve from the Pulse Meta, to Blackbeard meta to shield meta,” said Remy, referring to several other community “crisis” that popped up on the game’s official subreddit.

“Now we sit on the Glaz Meta. There will be always a “Meta” because at any given time competitive players will always find a Min-Max optimum. Our goal over each season is to take weak operators and try to make them playable and take strong operators and try to bring them closer to average.”

“The perfect balance (each character with the same winrate and pickrate) while being an important goal to aim at, is also an unreachable one.”